Store Name: Lady Bug Beads

Owner Name: Susan & Michael Rabbitt

Address: 7616 Big Bend Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63119

Website:www.ladybugbeads.net

How long has your store been open? 9+ years

How big is your store space? 3000 sq ft of showroom with an additional 3000sqft of classrooms and offices

Tell us a bit about your bead store’s design. What’s the greatest inspiration behind your bead store?

Our shop is setup to let the customer layout beads for their project while they are still the store. We try to inspire creativity with numerous samples that we are happy to color copy for patterns for our customers.

What made you decide to open a bead store?

There were not enough beads in St. Louis to feed my own addiction so I didn’t think I could be the only person here like that.

Do you have a specific product that your store is known for?

We have a wide variety of all kinds of beads and findings, but we are particularly known for our seed bead selection.

Do you offer classes? What is your most popular class?

We have designer classes from beginner to advanced and our very popular free classes which are held at 6pm on Thursday and 11am on Saturday. Each class is a new project that everyone can accomplish.

What do you think are some of the biggest change in bead trends in the last 5 or 10 years?

Chains and leather have been the most recent trend.

As an artist and not just a bead store owner, what is your favorite material/style that you use?

I am a seed bead addict. If the project isn’t going to take me 15 hours, I’m not happy!

Do you have any other passions/hobbies outside of beading?

Gardening is about all I can add with the ownership of a business, but I used to do basket weaving and stained glass.

Now they just sit in the basement. I call it addictive behavior disorder (ABD).

I am very fortunate to have a fabulous staff that are all beaders. We strive to addict everybody that comes in the door.

We realize that without our customers we would not be in business. We continually have promos and trunk shows to keep them interested and coming back.